First Lutheran Church

Dec 6

400 Liberty Avenue

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SAT: 10:00am - 4:00pm

YOUR EXPERIENCE

Visitors will experience this beautiful church, complete with Tiffany windows, liturgical art, and the impressive organ. Guests will be able to peer into the chamber of the Casavant organ to see some of the 2,000 pipes. The tower bells will also be demonstrated for guests.

Wheelchair Accessible Entrance: YES
Wheelchair Accessible Restrooms: YES
Public Restrooms: YES
Photography Allowed: YES

ABOUT THIS BUILDING

First Lutheran Church, (whose formal name is First English Evangelical Lutheran Church), has served Downtown Pittsburgh since its founding in 1837 as the first English-speaking Lutheran church west of the Allegheny Mountains. Today, it is a surprisingly young and vital congregation serving the metropolitan community whose members come from across the city, suburbs, and outlying counties.

ARCHITECTURE AND ART

First Lutheran Church is a resolute survivor, being the last of numerous churches that once sat on and around Grant Street, Pittsburgh’s grandest thoroughfare. It and the Allegheny County Courthouse, both dedicated in 1888, are the oldest structures on the street. The current building, which is the second to house the congregation, was designed by Andrew Peebles, an accomplished architect whose work in the city reflected the Gothic Revival, the most popular ecclesiastical style of the time. He is also known for designing St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church on the North Side, once the cathedral of the former Allegheny City, as well as for his contributions to Clayton, the home of industrialist Henry Clay Frick.

For First Lutheran Church, Peebles skillfully executed the building on a difficult site as a broad rectangle, rather than the more traditional deep rectangle used for churches. The church is built of sandstone in the form of a Greek cross, the nave being 74 feet deep and 74 feet wide in the transepts. The building was consecrated November 4, 1888, and designated a Historic Landmark by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation in 1975. The Foundation describes the church building as a picturesque cluster of steep roofed Gothic elements and a 170-foot spired tower.

Much of the art, liturgical appointments, and the construction of the building itself can be credited to parish member George Weyman, who founded Copenhagen Tobacco in Downtown Pittsburgh, and to his son and business partner, Benjamin Franklin Weyman, an organist, art enthusiast, and world traveler. In an 1897-98 renovation, three stained glass windows, including the 500-square-foot Black Memorial Good Shepherd Window, designed by Frederick Wilson of Tiffany Studios, were installed above the choir. Additionally, the original dark gothic paneling in the chancel (remnants of which still exist in the Baptistry) was replaced with colorful mosaics, including the extraordinary Mother of God Lunette above the white marble altar. While it is believed the mosaics may also be by Tiffany, definitive records are still lost to history.

The 1890s also saw the addition of a baptismal font in the form of an angel, commissioned by the younger Weyman and made in Florence, Italy. It is a copy of the Thorwaldsen font at the Lutheran Church of Our Lady, the cathedral of Copenhagen, Denmark. Flanking the marble high altar, two gas candelabra were also installed during this time, which, according to oral history, were acquired by Weyman, curiously, from two different castles: one in England; the other elsewhere in Europe.

The city of Pittsburgh refurbished Grant Street to make it into a grand boulevard in 1979. Since the project would require First Lutheran Church to resurface its sidewalks, a courtyard was constructed in front of the Parish House. In 1985, the bronze Resurrection sculpture by Minnesota sculptor Paul T. Granlund was installed to proclaim the promise of the Christian faith and celebrate the renewal of Grant Street. In 2024, the sculpture was moved to a more central location in front of the church.

A splendid cross of gilded bronze and stainless steel, designed by member and architect William Brocious, was blessed in the courtyard and lifted into place at noon on November 2, 1998. This powerful visual symbol serves as a Christian witness on the exterior of the building. The old copper cross, which became dislodged in a storm in 1975, is now mounted to the ceiling of Holy Cross Hall on the church’s lower level.

Three bells: Glaube (faith), Hoffnung, (hope), and Liebe, (love) were originally installed at the now-demolished St. Paul’s German United Evangelical Church on the North Side. After years of resting on the ground in front of the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum, they were blessed and raised to the tower of First Lutheran Church in November 1995.

The magnificent pipe organ, installed in 1992, was built by Casavant Fres of Quebec. New Guild Studios of Braddock designed the tabernacle in the baptistry, featuring a triptych of the Mother of Sorrows, in 1998. In the space below the tower is the Lamb of God Oratory (a place of prayer) with its beautiful Columbarium, designed by New Guild Studio in Braddock with consultation from member and art professor Christine Torie and William Brocious. In an urban church, a columbarium is, in essence, a graveyard, a place where the cremated remains of the faithful departed can be interred. The oratory and columbarium were blessed and dedicated on All Saints Sunday in 2000.

In 2002, the Stations of the Cross, designed by Granda Liturgical Arts of Spain and encased by New Guild Studio, were added. The cross above the altar in the form of Christus Rex, designed by Mark Humerick of New Mexico, was installed in 2009, replacing the 1975 Virgil Cantini cross, which now graces the south narthex. In the 2010s, major renovations included the installation of a slate floor with colorful mosaics in the nave, created by artist Julie Richey of Texas and designed by William Brocious. Brocious also designed the award-winning free-standing altar, installed in 1992.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO HISTORY

The church’s prominent history includes three pastors commemorated as saints in the Lutheran Church. Father John C.F. Heyer, the founding pastor, was the first Lutheran missionary sent abroad from the United States. In India he founded what would become the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church, now boasting more than 3.5 million members.

William A. Passavant, pastor from 1844-55 and rooted here until his death in 1894, founded throughout North America numerous churches, synods, hospitals, orphanages, old folks homes, a religious order for nurses, a seminary, Thiel College, and several hospitals, including what is now UPMC Passavant. In 1862, four months before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, Passavant led a committee of pastors who delivered a pronouncement against slavery to President Lincoln at the White House.

The third celebrated saint who served here as pastor, from 1855-59, was Charles Porterfield Krauth who, with Passavant, founded a new church body known as the General Council and was the first to lead the newly formed Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.

Throughout its history, with a deep dedication to classical Lutheran theology, First Lutheran Church has been a leader in restoring traditional liturgy and music within North American Lutheranism. The historic church bodies whose roots are closely tied to the history of First Lutheran Church are now part of the three million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

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